Anonyma: A Woman in Berlin / Winter in Wartime

The second world war is the shared preoccupation at the moment of mainstream European film-making, and this pair is pretty representative. Anonyma, based on a controversial anonymous memoir published in the 1950s, is a harrowing account of the price German women paid for survival in the first days of the Soviet invasion in 1945. It's a sober, sobering, thoughtful, surprisingly objective film. Based on a novel for children, Winter in Wartime is a decent, rather obvious, not always convincing account of the last days of the German occupation of Holland, as seen by the bright 12-year-old son of a small-town mayor.